How do I become … a priest

‘Faith and desire is no guarantee of ordination. Would-be candidates have first to convince a parish priest that they have the makings of a priest.’
Photograph: JVPhoto/Alamy

The calling, when it came, was not a siren summons from above. Instead, it was a slow logical dawning that shifted Tim Pike’s career ambition from politician to ordained ministry in the Church of England. “I was an altar boy at my parish church when I was 11,” says the 46-year-old vicar of Holy Innocents in north London. “The older boys did more interesting things like swing the incense and carry the cross, so I assumed it was a natural progression up the hierarchy and that you ended up being the priest.”

He was 15 and had achieved the status of cross bearer when his faith crystallised. “The priest was reading out the Beatitudes while I held the cross, and I thought yes, I really believe this,” he says. “My parish priest was one of the wisest, kindest people I knew and I wanted to be somebody like him.”

But the defining moment came in Moscow, where he spent a year as part of his Russian studies at Manchester University. “On the bus into town I looked at the communist slogans which seemed so at odds with the reality that poor people had to deal with,” he says.

“I realised that I would be a rubbish politician and that I could put those values to better use within the church,” he adds. “Preaching is about putting your conception of truth to others, and in that way it is similar to politics. It was then I realised I wanted to be a priest.”

Faith and desire is, however, no guarantee of ordination. Would-be candidates have first to convince a parish priest that they have the makings of a priest, then pass the scrutiny of a director of ordinands during months of interviews, before enduring a two-day selection conference where a committee endeavours to distinguish between pious enthusiasm and genuine vocation. Undischarged bankrupts are not considered, nor are hopefuls under 18 or over 57, in order to ensure adequate maturity and to justify the enormous training costs with the prospect of a reasonably long ministry.

Many who wish for ordination are deemed unsuitable whether in character, faith or ability; many more are advised to go away and prove themselves before being recommended for holy orders. Those that pass muster embark on a theological degree or diploma course – a non-residential course for married candidates over the age of the 35, residential study in one of the diminishing number of seminaries for those under 30, or the option of either for older single ordinands.

Pike was told to spend six months working in a parish before he could be recommended for training. “I had never done any pastoral work before,” he says. “I went to a deprived parish in Leicester on an estate surrounded by dual carriageways. Quite a few professionals visited it as social workers, speech therapists etc, but the clergy and pastoral assistants were the only professionals who lived there, and I realised that one of the privileges of being a priest is that you are accepted as part of the community – whatever kind of community it is – and there is an instinctively generous welcome into people’s lives.”

After three years studying theology at Mirfield College in Yorkshire, he was ordained at 26 and sent to be curate on an estate in the town of Hartlepool. While at Mirfield Pike had taken a BA in theology at Leeds University, but he says it was the discipline of communal life at the college that got him through the first daunting years of ministry, and he is disturbed by the increasing reliance on non-residential training and threats to traditional colleges.

Praying is one thing I can do for people, and it’s surprising how many ask you to pray with them when you visit

“As a priest you have to structure your own day,” he says. “You could lounge around all week watching the shopping channel, but the rigours of residential training with its commitment to morning and evening services teaches you to create a framework of prayer so that you don’t just spend all day reacting to circumstance.”

There are practical frustrations of priesthood, which is why Pike thinks the discipline of prayer is so vital. “Often you can make things better by picking up the phone, but there are times when you can’t. If I’ve met someone whose grandson is on drugs or whose husband is dying of cancer, praying is one thing I can do for them and it’s surprising how many people ask you to pray with them when you visit.”

Twenty years on, Pike is channeling his early political ambitions into initiatives such as a winter night shelter that feeds and lodges homeless people in the church during the coldest months. It exasperates him that the benevolence of clergy and congregations across the country are eclipsed by headlines of controversies.

“People assume that all we ever talk about is gender and sex, and that the Bible is a compendium of rules of what you can and can’t do in the bedroom,” he says. “That’s not my experience. I don’t think my parishioners get overly agitated by women priests and homosexuality, although fireworks can fly when it comes to who changes the flower water and where to put the curried goat.”

A job that pitches you into the centre of strangers’ lives, often at calamitous moments, is inevitably as challenging as it is uplifting. As a young priest, Pike found his dog collar a mixed blessing. “You have to get used to wearing different clothes to everyone else and a dog collar makes you very visible, which took some getting used to – as did hearing people much older than me calling me ‘Father’.”

Equally constraining is the expectation, often self-imposed, that clergy should lead inhumanly spotless lives. “I once had to plan the diary of the deanery clergy chapter with the area dean who enjoyed a glass of wine, and we had such a happy, successful planning session that I fell asleep for six hours and failed to turn up for mass,” Pike says. “Luckily the parishioners just got on with it and said evening prayer instead.”

It is work that requires not just faith, but a level head, managerial nous, unusual empathy and, on occasion, a strong stomach. And in between the baptisms and last rites some of it is stultifyingly dull. “You don’t always feel divinely inspired,” Pike admits. “As with any job there are times when you just have to plough grimly through it, especially the administrative side.”

These challenges, however, are outweighed by the compensations – the strengthening sense of calling and purpose and the unique invitation into private lives. “I’m naturally quite a nosy person so I enjoy finding out about the huge variety of people who come my way,” he says. “The marvellous thing is that when you wake each day you have no idea who or what will cross your path.”